To Love the Brightest Stars
by berry-cool
Summary: Jyn reflects on a choice moment with Cassian in the beauty of the night. Part of Rogue One: Encore - will enhance your enjoyment of And the Stars Above Us (Parts 1 - 3), and K for Kickable, but having read those stories is not necessary.


Jyn lay on the bed, thinking. She did a lot of thinking, always had done. In fact the greatest trouble was to get herself to stop thinking in the very first place. But in that precise moment Jyn was happy to think, welcomed it, because she wasn'tt so much thinking as reminiscing. The shutters in her room were drawn but if she squinted she could just about see faint rays of light peeking through the gaps.

"We didn't fly," she murmured to herself.

She had run into Cassian earlier that evening on the way to his quarters, having turned over Luke's advice over and over in her head. A midnight fly sounded like something relaxing, something that might just work when it came to getting Cassian to hate her less. She was so caught up in how to present the idea to him that she almost ran slap bang into him. It had been funny, really, now that she was looking back on it, how apologetic both of them had been, how dreadfully sorry, how neither of them wanted to speak first or apologise first and in the end Jyn had to hold up her hand to stop the gabbling or neither of them would probably still be standing there now.

What was important was that he had agreed to fly with her, that he had walked into the hangar with her until he had see the doors of the hanger ajar and had gently nudge her shoulder with his.

"What?" she had said, about to make a beeline for the ship.

"Wanna take a walk outside first?" he had asked. "Just a bit of air… it's so beautiful outside. You know, before we fly through it?"

She was about to reply when she saw him shake his head.

"I didn't really make a case for it, did I? I meant to -"

"No, let's go," said Jyn, stepping forward to lead the way out. She remembered feeling anxious, nervous, even though she couldn't quite place why.

He had been right, though. It was beautiful outside, the sky so clear that hundreds, maybe even thousands of stars shone brightly and lit up the night sky.

She stood there in awe beside him for a while, as somewhere in the distance she wondered if she could hear someone humming - or perhaps it was just her imagination.

"When my father was a kid he said he wanted to work amongst the stars," Cassian said quietly, surprising her. "He wanted to be an astronomer for my home planet. We held those in very high esteem, even though the office was old and a little pointless. He wanted to take ships to different galaxies and see new worlds and help people with his discoveries and be remembered as a great man for everything he did. That was his dream. His grand dream, his great vision for who he thought he should be."

Jyn remembered hanging off his every word.

"What happened?" she whispered quietly.

"He met the woman he was going to marry. My mother."

Jyn opened and shut her mouth, before tentatively replying.

"My father said it made him feel the same way, when he met my mother."

That had opened a door then, the two of them just walking and talking about family, happy memories, things they remembered from their childhood before the Empire changed things forever. They didn't talk about their lives after they had both lost everything - but that wasn't important. What was important, Jyn realised, as she thought about it again, was that they had been dared to tell someone else about the purest, most precious memories they had.

"… You know," Jyn remembered saying. "I remember seeing my mother there, so strong, so proud, and I remembered thinking how all I wanted to be was just like here. Unafraid, willing to go the distance for the people she loved."

She felt his hand slip into hers, full of hesitation, but also warmth.

"You've proven that many times over," he said softly. "I saw that when you were standing there on that tower on Scarif, ready to face down anything."

Jyn turned to look at him. Somewhere in the distance, the humming had stopped. Then almost on impulse, she walked forward to close the small gap between them, and kissed him. Just once, just softly.

She let their heads rest together as after a moment Cassian took a long sigh.

"I understand my father," he said quietly.

They had kept close to each other after that, their fingers always lingering close to one another as they simply walked under the canopy of stars, every so often one of them telling a story or saying their thoughts. And eventually they walked back into the hangar, even ran into K2-SO on the way to getting hot cocoa in the mess hall.

Without words he had followed her to her quarters and they had sat huddled together at the head of bed as they talked, and laughed, and stole light kisses from one another. Only in their shared smiles was an acknowledgement of what was happening until the morning began to set in and sitting huddled in bed talking turned into lying together under the covers talking and Jyn began to understand how terrible some of Cassian's jokes really were.

When Jyn had awoken the next morning she must have only slept an hour or two, but she didn't mind. He was still there, his breathing steady, duvet under one arm and the other around where she lay. She had turned onto her stomach, resting on an elbow, one hand gently on his chest.

He sniffled and after an awkward jolt of his head, turned to see her, his eyes bleary.

"Is it morning already?" he asked.

She nodded, a smile faint on her lips. He opened his mouth and Jyn knew he was about to worry, start to reel through all the things he ought to be doing today. But instead he met her eyes and shut his mouth.

"You have beautiful eyes, you know?" he said.

Jyn smiled and laughed, kissing him again.

"So do you, Captain Andor."

"Flattered," he replied. "But as stunning as mine might be, they're certainly not prettier than the stars themselves."


End file.
